Skillful Grace: Tara Practice for Our Times

by Tulku Urgyen, Trulshik Adeu, Marcia Binder Schmidt (Editor)

Tara is one of the most inspiring of Buddhist deities, embodying the most compelling and vital qualities of the feminine: beauty, grace, and the ability to nurture, care for, and protect. This complex goddess, whose practice transcends sect and class, is also a true warrior, vanquishing fear and ignorance–in a sense the earliest known incarnation of Buddhist feminism. Skillful Grace is an elegant introduction to practice and meditation techniques based on the Vajrayana path.The book is divided into three main sections. The first contains the basic text of Tara practice, The Essential Instruction on the Threefold Excellence, which connects the seeker to the profound essence of Tara as revealed by Chokgyur Lingpa. The other two sections feature enlightening commentaries on the text by Tulku Urgyen Rinpoche, Jamgön Kongtrül, and Adeu Rinpoche.Skillful Grace includes all the preliminaries of Tara practice, as well as its main part and the subsequent yogas. Tara Bennett Goleman’s foreword, Marcia Schmidt’s introduction, and various appendixes and footnotes add useful context.

Genres: Buddhism

196 pages, Kindle Edition

First published October 16, 2007

About the author

Tulku Urgyen Rinpoche ((Tibetan: སྤྲུལ་སྐུ་ཨོ་རྒྱན་རིན་པོ་ཆེ་, Wylie: Sprul-sku O-rgyan Rin-po-che, where "Rinpoche" is an honorific meaning "Precious One," not a surname) was a Tibetan Buddhist Lama of the Kagyü and Nyingma schools, and a teacher of Dzogchen. He is most widely known in the West through the works of Erik Pema Kunsang and Marcia Binder Schmidt.

Reviews

[Mark Bourdon · Rating 5 out of 5]

As a Tara practitioner, Skillful Grace was a wonderful addition to my practice. I don’t recommend this as your first book to read about Tara and Tara practice, but definitely a valuable text for someone who wants further Tara practice insights. 🙏🏻

[Padma · Rating 4 out of 5]

Skillful Grace provides instructions on furthering an already established Tara practice. I do wish the book provided a glossary, for much of the terminology is suitable only for those who've already received the Tara empowerments, or those deeply familiar with Vajrayana Buddhism.

[Nick York]

I read this mainly as a supplementation to my main practice. It is not a book you can pick and suddenly practice, but it is a good tool for those who do: notably Tara's Triple Excellence. It is clearly written and simple to read and understand. If you have an interest in Tara practice I highly suggest this book and dharmasun.org whose Tara's Triple Excellence is this book in web form and far more elaborate.